Romney’s Real Primary Problem

In my piece for this week’s New Yorker, I noted that the use of primaries to select a Presidential nominee is a relatively recent phenomenon and one that does not necessarily deliver the desired result for a party.

The classic argument about the dangers of primaries is an almost forgotten book, “Consequences of Party Reform,” by the great political scientist Nelson Polsby. One of Polsby’s crucial points was that moving the delegate selection process from back-room bargaining by state party leaders into the sunshine of primary elections had certain costs.

Polsby pointed out that when voters can only choose one person in a multi-candidate field, it becomes difficult to divine what the electorate is really saying. “Once the number of alternatives available to an electorate rises above two, and so long as only first choices of voters are counted, there is a nontrivial likelihood that the plurality winner of such an election will turn out to be unwanted by a majority.”

Mitt Romney continues to be the kind of plurality winner Polsby warned party leaders about. After twenty-three contests, Romney has secured 3,219,648 votes out of 8,094,438 cast. His share of the total vote is 39.8 per cent. The only states in which Romney has garnered a majority are in places where distinctive conditions made him the overwhelming favorite: Massachusetts, his home state; Virginia, where Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich were not on the ballot; and Nevada and Idaho, which have large Mormon populations.

“If passions run high but choices are spread around, it is likely that the ultimate winner will be unpopular,” Polsby wrote, “and, depending on the confidence of voters in the choice mechanism that produced him, possibly even damaged in his overall acceptability. This is arguably one reason why sharply contested primary elections sometimes lead to losses in the general election.”

Despite the divisions within the Republican Party, there’s a good case that Polsby’s warning about plurality victors like Romney being “unwanted by a majority” won’t come to pass. Just because a party is closely divided doesn’t necessarily mean it’s deeply divided. And there’s reason to believe the G.O.P. will be pulled back together by the unifying force of defeating Obama.

But yesterday’s results give some reason to question this judgment and hint that Polsby was right, at least in this case. Romney again lost evangelicals in every state where we have exit polls (except Virginia). And polls showed a stark divide between the views of Santorum and Romney voters. Sixty per cent of Romney voters and sixty per cent of Santorum voters in Ohio said they would not be satisfied if the other man won.

There is no reason to believe that the very conservative and evangelical voters who have refused to back Romney will change their minds before the primary season ends in June. But the assumption that these voters will back him with intensity in the fall is no longer a sure thing.

Photograph by Lauren Lancaster.

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